Anonymous Companies Shield Human Traffickers from Law Enforcement
Louise Shelley, Director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC), Author Human Trafficking: A Global Perspective (September 2017)
“Human traffickers often choose to invest their trafficking profits in real estate. Therefore, the ability to anonymously invest their profits means that they can not only get away with their crime but enjoy the benefits of it.”
Keeli Sorensen, Director of Programs, Polaris (June 2016)
“In order to ensure accountability for human trafficking, Congress must pass legislation that requires corporations and LLCs to disclose their beneficial owners, thereby guaranteeing that law enforcement has access to this information. Until police and prosecutors can identify the individuals operating illicit massage businesses, criminals engaged in human trafficking will continue acting with impunity across the United States.”
Melysa Sperber, Director of the Alliance to End Slavery & Trafficking/Humanity United, (April 2017)
“This bill represents a critical first step in ensuring that our federal government partners with financial institutions to restrict traffickers’ access to the banking system, thus disrupting their operations. This bill will also improve law enforcements’ access to information on traffickers’ already gathered by financial institutions—making it easier to prosecute traffickers, while reducing the burden on trafficking victims to provide testimony and evidence.”
Jacob Player, BYU Anti-Human-Trafficking Club President (September 2017)
“Shell companies are the mask that many sinister institutions use to profit without consequence from illicit activities such as human trafficking, and that has to stop.”
“With every threat that we track, be it foreign terrorists, narcotics cartels, sanctioned regimes or cyber hackers, our investigators encounter American shell companies used to hide and move money. . . By fixing our shell company problem, Congress would close a loophole that has allowed billions of dollars to flow with anonymity and safeguard the reputation of the United States as the best and safest place to do business on Earth.”
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For more information contact Clark Gascoigne, The FACT Coalition, at cgascoigne@thefactcoalition.org.